Last Stand
by Insert New Name Here
Summary: I never understood the concept of right and wrong. After all, in a world where truly living people are scarce and the undead seem to lurk around every corner, notions of whether killing them is right or wrong are usually taken with a grain of salt. (AU, eventual Kiri/multi, rating may change to M in the future)
1. Chapter 1: Nameless

Last Stand

Chapter One: Nameless

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Okay, I know that I really shouldn't be writing new stories. I get that some of you are pissed that I've started so many new stories without continuing them.**

**This one, however, is a rare case. You see, I already have quite a few chapters ahead of this one planned out. I don't know how long it'll take me to write them out, but I have a plan laid out for this story.**

**Also, for those of you who may be interested, I've made some serious progress on SAO: Fallen Angels. It will probably be the next story I update aside from a few possible chapters on this one.**

**Oh, and in case you didn't notice, this is going to be a type of AU that I've never thought about doing before. It's pretty obvious by the title that this is a post-apocalyptic world of zombies by the summary, but there are a few things that differ from your average zombie story. I won't spoil you on what I mean just yet, since I want you to read instead of wait for me to tell you.**

**Well, I guess that's it. I'll see you at the bottom!**

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><p>I never understood the concept of right and wrong. Some have told me that I have to do what's right. But then, some people have told me that what I thought was right, well, was actually wrong. After countless people telling me that different things are right and wrong, I came to the conclusion that everyone has their own unique perception of right and wrong. Everyone always thinks they're right.<p>

So, then, why is it that I don't think that way? I've never been able to distinctly sense what's right or wrong without someone else influencing my judgment. And, due to the fact that I haven't met any living people in the past five years, I'm not even sure that I've kept a solid grip on my sanity.

For me, there is only one thing to cling onto in my life. Survival. After killing so many of them, surviving so many situations that no one else could, the only thing I thought about from day to day was how to survive. I took things one day at a time, not thinking any further ahead than I needed to in order to live to see another day.

I guess one reason I don't have a sense of right and wrong is probably because of the countless times I've been forced to slaughter someone else in order to preserve my own life. In the span of five or so years without any people to stand by me, I've become completely desensitized to killing them.

After all, in a world where truly living people are scarce and the undead seem to lurk around every corner, notions of whether killing them is right or wrong are usually taken with a grain of salt.

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><p>The all too familiar stillness of another empty house. The stale smell of air trapped far too long without circulating through any kind of working ventilation system. I timidly stepped across the foyer, nearly stumbling over debris left behind from someone's hurried exit.<p>

The neighborhood I was currently in had been nice once, but now it couldn't be distinguished from any other abandoned town or village. My footsteps broke the silence, and the beam of the flashlight in my left hand cut through the dim lighting of the interior of what had once been someone's home. There was no way to tell how long it had been empty, but the layer of dust clinging to every surface gave me a bit of comfort. I probably wouldn't run into anyone here.

_Good. Still, I have to be careful._

The kitchen would be the first place I explored; the loud grumbling of my stomach would most likely make my presence known to the whole house if not quelled. It reminded me that I hadn't had a full meal in ages. Probably since I came across that mansion three months ago. After I left, I had been surviving solely on what I could find in houses like this one. Usually, that wasn't much.

I moved through the house and cautiously entered the kitchen. I could never be too careful; being loud and stupid would surely get me killed. Still, I couldn't stop myself from letting my guard down a bit when I found a pantry full of canned goods.

All that stood between me and tons of food was a can opener. I couldn't care less about what was actually _in_ any of the cans; as long as it wasn't spoiled or rotten, it would be like heaven to my stomach.

_Me: one, house: zero!_

I thought this as I pried open the lid of one of the cans with my butterfly knife, revealing canned oranges. It didn't take long before the whole can had been emptied, along with two others.

My hunger satiated, I decided to look around the rest of the house. After all, I had to make sure it was empty if I wished to stay there for the night.

The stairs creaked as I climbed them, kicking all my senses, sharpened by my primal need to survive, into overdrive. I held that same butterfly knife in my right hand, but also carried a longer, full-tang knife in my left, one that I normally kept sheathed at my left side.

I couldn't help but notice the photos lining the staircase. A family had lived here. The photos all depicted two rather tall parents, and two kids, one a boy and one a girl. The boy looked kind of like me, or at least he would if I ever got a bath. My ebony hair was oily and matted; there were always more pressing needs than that of any kind of hygiene other than keeping my teeth in proper shape for eating.

The boy looked to be about fourteen, same as me. Of course, that means that if he were still alive, he would be older than me. I was nine when the Event happened, and there was no telling when these pictures were actually taken.

Sadly, I couldn't really be sure of my own age at that point. After the Event, it became incredibly hard to tell time, from the time of day to even when a year had passed. The only way I would know my approximate age was by the season; I knew I was born in the late summer, so when I could tell that fall was approaching, I would just add another year to my life. Ages and birthdays were really just trivial concerns in the grand scheme of things, though. If you're alive, you're alive. It doesn't really matter how old you are, just as long as you can effectively fend for yourself and survive.

I made quick work of my search of the upstairs. The parents' bedroom, the shared bedroom of the children, and a restroom. Only one door remained, and it could be for any purpose. My heart sped up slightly at the possibilities of what the room could contain.

An inaudible sigh escaped my lips as I soundlessly opened the door. It was only a nursery. Apparently, the family had been expecting a new addition before the Event.

As I stood at the entrance to the nursery, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what it was like to be little, to still believe that there was nothing out there that my parents couldn't handle.

It was because of my calm state that I heard a creaking sound from the nursery's closet door. My eyes flew open and I poised myself to attack as something slowly pushed its way out of the closet.

It was the boy from the photos. He must have been hiding in the closet in a vain attempt to escape the thing that started the Event. He must have been here the whole time, wasting away in wait for someone like me to come by. He shared the same trait that all of the undead did: a shining set of golden eyes. The rest of his body looked like it had been rotting for years, which it probably had.

In a flash, I put my butterfly knife in my pocket and reached for the weapon hidden under my black jacket. My common sense stopped me just before I grasped its handle; the noise it made would undoubtedly attract more of my opponent's kind.

One swift slash through his neck and spinal cord from the knife in my left hand was all it took to end it. His head fell to the floor and rolled off to the side, the shimmering golden color fading from its eyes before both the body and the head dissipated into mere dust.

Even the blood on my knife turned to dust. I turned it so that the edge faced the ground, watching as the dust fell and dispersed into a small cloud upon contact with the wooden flooring.

Letting out a nervous breath I hadn't even realized I was holding, I sheathed my knife and turned back to the hallway. Family wasn't for me; I was a survivor. I didn't have the luxury of having a mom or a dad. Still, as I shut the nursery door, I couldn't help but wonder what I would be doing in a different world.

Before I went downstairs once more, I went back to the parents' bedroom. I took the blankets off of the queen-sized bed, lumping them together and carrying them down the stairs. I walked through the house and into the living room, where I had left the backpack that contained my provisions right by the couch.

Once I had spread the sheets out on the large couch, I grabbed my backpack, unzipping the ratty black thing and pulling out a thick paperback book I found in the mansion. The cover depicted a man smiling down at a much shorter woman, and the title tried to set it up as a sappy romance novel.

Since beginning to read it, I had found the book to be anything but. It captured the ups and downs of real life— or, at least, what real life used to be like before the Event. In other words, the rather long novel was essentially a window through which I could escape into the world as it once was, into the times when I didn't have to fear for my life every day.

Finding this book was a godsend fortune for me. It helped me regain some of my ever-dwindling memories of the way things were. It helped me hold onto my humanity… for the time being.

And so, I began to read. Unfortunately, not ten pages later, I heard a shrill sound coming from the streets outside this small house I was using to take refuge for a single night.

_That sound… what is it?_

And again. This time, the sound seemed closer. I set my book down on the couch, then slowly stood up, walking through the house until I reached the bay window in the front. Making sure to stay away from the moonlight that illuminated much of the flooring, I looked through the wall of glass to find…

_Is that… another human?_

A humanoid figure stood in the middle of the street, standing in a posture that the undead very rarely took. From where I was, I couldn't make out much of its appearance, and I couldn't even discern its gender. However, one thing stood out to me. Somehow, even from tens of yards away, in the dead of night, the one thing I could see was…

_Those eyes… they're blue. Whoever it is… isn't one of them._

That thought alone sent a surge of an emotion I couldn't recognize through my entire body. I almost acted on it, almost went outside to meet this living person. But then, I saw it. Or, more appropriately, _them_.

Three undead were slowly moving towards the figure. They wanted to contaminate it, to make it one of them.

_Why aren't you running?!_

I screamed this in my mind, even though I knew that my thoughts wouldn't reach the figure. I soon recognized its posture, and what I realized filled me with dread. Whoever it was seemed to be paralyzed with fear.

Every muscle in my body screamed at me to help this person, the only living human I had encountered for five years. At the same time, my mind tried desperately to keep my impulse at bay. I knew it would most likely lead to both of our deaths if I just charged out there recklessly.

I needed to come up with a plan before running out there, but I knew I didn't have the time. It all came down to a battle between my instincts to survive… and my heart, which was begging my mind to make me rescue her. And, in the end…

My heart somehow won.

Without another thought, I lunged forward, activating the one trick I possessed.

There was no sound of shattering glass as I passed through the window and into the street. No, my trick made sure of that. I moved through the window as if it wasn't even there. That was my trick, one that had saved me from countless situations where I should never have survived.

The Phantom Shift.

Or, at least, that's what I dubbed it. The terminology made little difference to me, just so long as it worked.

Now that I was out in the open, I could see much more than a mere three undead. I counted ten sets of shimmering golden eyes, all drawn to a new target— me, that is.

Without looking behind me, in a calm, even tone, I said, "Get back. I can handle this on my own."

"But—" the figure, now identified as a female from her voice, tried to say something before I cut her off.

"No buts," I said, pulling the butterfly knife from my pocket with my right hand and unsheathing the long knife from my its scabbard on my left side with my other hand. I flicked open my butterfly knife in a flash, already determining which one I should kill first.

I decided to go with the one near the front, moving at the fastest pace; the slower ones didn't matter much until they got very close, but the faster ones were much more dangerous. Thus, I decided to focus on killing the most threatening before the others.

Without a moment's delay, I lunged towards the fastest one, falling to the ground and somersaulting to close the distance. As I rolled past its left side, I stuck my long knife out, cutting through its knees.

As I rolled up to my feet, I dragged the same knife up through my adversary's back, then turned around and severed its spinal cord at the neck with my butterfly knife. The undead fell to the ground, turning into dust soon after.

I didn't wait for it to fully decompose, instead opting to target the one to my left. I took one swing at its neck with my long knife, cutting clean through its entire neck and making its head fly.

I sensed one coming from behind me. I reacted accordingly, spinning to my left and cutting through the middle of its face, right at the jawline. I still hit a part of the spinal cord, damaging it enough so that the undead began to turn to dust soon after.

The next few seconds went by in a blur. All I remember was the constant sound of knife tearing through rotten flesh. When I came back to my senses, I found myself standing in the middle of a giant cloud of dust composed of the remains of the undead I had slaughtered.

I swung at the dust around me once with each of my knives, the tiny breeze created from them dispersing the cloud and making the whole area much clearer. For a second or two, I looked up at the sky, gazing longingly at the full moon that illuminated the streets with its soft glow.

I turned to the girl I saved, finding that, even up close, the only thing I could make out was the pair of deep blue eyes that I saw from within the house I had appropriated. The whole rest of her body was nothing more than a silhouette to my eyes.

Even with this strange abnormality in my vision, I knew I still had to speak to her. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked her, giving what I hoped to be a caring look. Going without people around for five years made it troublesome to remember what facial expressions went with what emotions.

"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a timid voice. "But what about you? You didn't get hurt by them, did you?"

I sheathed my long knife and pocketed my butterfly knife, shaking my head to try to reassure her. "I'm just fine," I replied, giving her a thumbs-up with my right hand. "Anyway, what's your name?

"Yoruko," the blue-eyed girl told me. "And yours?"

I paused. _What… what _is_ my name?_ I thought, frowning slightly as I tried to remember.

Yoruko must have taken my silence and frown the wrong way, for her next words were, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"That's not it," I quickly responded, my voice slightly raised. "It's just… I don't have a name. Or, at least, not one worth remembering. And I should know… because I don't remember it myself."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Well, what do you think? I think it's pretty different from the average zombie fic so far. Then again, I've never read a zombie story, nor have I actually played a video game of the genre.**

**Regardless, I had a freaking blast writing this. I just hope you guys had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.**

**You know, I really would put a disclaimer here, but I've recently come to realize that there is no actual need to put one here. It's mostly just a word count boosting paragraph or sentence. So yeah, I won't be doing those anymore.**

**See you later!**


	2. Chapter 2: Cerulean

Last Stand

Chapter Two: Cerulean

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><p><strong>AN:**

**This is literally the fastest update I've made to a story in months. I'm not sure how long this streak will continue for, but know this: I've finally come up with a complete outline for this story. I'm still fleshing out some of the final details, but I've got a set plotline that I want to follow. Thus, I should be able to continue to update this story more and more often than my others.**

**Well, I guess I'll let you read now. See you below!**

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><p><em>I turned to the girl I saved, finding that, even up close, the only thing I could make out was the pair of deep blue eyes that I saw from within the house I had appropriated. The whole rest of her body was nothing more than a silhouette to my eyes.<em>

_Even with this strange abnormality in my vision, I knew I still had to speak to her. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked her, giving what I hoped to be a caring look. Going without people around for five years made it troublesome to remember what facial expressions went with what emotions._

_"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a timid voice. "But what about you? You didn't get hurt by them, did you?"_

_I sheathed my long knife and pocketed my butterfly knife, shaking my head to try to reassure her. "I'm just fine," I replied, giving her a thumbs-up with my right hand. "Anyway, what's your name?_

_"Yoruko," the blue-eyed girl told me. "And yours?"_

_I paused._ What… what is my name? _I thought, frowning slightly as I tried to remember._

_Yoruko must have taken my silence and frown the wrong way, for her next words were, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."_

_"That's not it," I quickly responded, my voice slightly raised. "It's just… I don't have a name. Or, at least, not one worth remembering. And I should know… because I don't remember it myself."_

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><p>"You don't remember your own name?" this girl calling herself Yoruko asked me, her eyes widened.<p>

"To be honest, I don't really remember much of anything that happened before the Event," I explained, casting my gaze to the ground. "I don't remember any of the people I used to know, or even where I lived. The earliest complete memory I have is of about five years ago, right after the Event."

I looked back at Yoruko. Or, more specifically, her fascinating indigo eyes. The only eyes I had seen for five years were my own steel-gray and the shining golden eyes of the undead. "I guess it's the price for living on."

"It must be hard for you," she whispered sadly. "Not remembering anything."

"To not remember my life before the Event is to not long for what's gone forever," I replied, shaking my head with a soft smile. I surveyed the area around us, looking for any signs of more undead. Even when I found none, I still kept up my guard.

I grabbed Yoruko's right hand with my left, earning a barely audible squeak of surprise. "It's not safe to be out in the open like this," I explained, beginning to lead her back towards my one-night base. "I set up a temporary place to sleep in this house, but I'm leaving in the morning."

"Where will you go?"

This question caught me off guard. I regained my composure just in time to respond. "Wherever I see fit to stay for a night or two. It could be a house in the next town over, it could be in a completely different region of the world. Either way, I can't stay in one place for more than a day."

"Why is that?" she queried as I opened the door to my temporary base. Once we were both inside and the door was shut and locked, I led her over to my couch.

"Because humans have a distinctly different scent that only the undead can pick up on," I explained, looking back to her indigo eyes. "After a day or two, the scent becomes strong enough for just about every one of them in the whole town to smell. And you already know what they would do with that info."

After that, the night was mostly spent in silence. Out of courtesy, I let Yoruko sleep on the couch-bed that I had prepared for myself, then sat down and leaned back against one of the armrests. It wasn't safe to sleep at this point; I had no idea how long she had been here, so she could attract undead to our temporary base. On top of that, with two humans in the same place, the smell they could track would most likely intensify greatly. This girl didn't seem to be able to fight, which meant I had to be on watch the entire night.

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><p>When the sun started peeking over the horizon, I knew it was time for me to leave. I got up from my spot beside the couch, grabbing my backpack and heading for the kitchen. I planned to get some more canned food from the pantry, and then leave while it was light out. The undead didn't move about as much in the light, and when they did, they were slower. As a tradeoff, the human smell that they tracked became stronger during the day, meaning they would know exactly where to go once night fell.<p>

After stocking up with about two days' worth of canned food, I returned to the living room, finding Yoruko still sleeping peacefully. After looking at the gray silhouette of her body, the only thing I could see of her, I began to have second thoughts.

_Can I really just leave her here?_

My rational mind couldn't even fathom where that thought came from. I couldn't take her with me; her lack of combat skills would either get her killed or get both of us killed. She was nothing but a liability, through and through.

_But… she's a human, like me…_

And yet again, a stray thought confused me even more. I had no need for social interaction. I had survived on my own for five years, and I could continue to survive just fine without her.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a strange noise coming from the front door. It sounded nothing like what an undead would sound like if it threw itself onto the door. Quite puzzled, I slowly walked through the house until I reached the door, my left hand grasping the knife at my side just in case something went wrong.

As I neared the door, the noise repeated itself. Three soft pounding sounds in quick succession before stopping altogether. Somehow, the noise reminded me of something, but the memory loomed just past my mind's grasp.

I looked through the tiny glass window, just large enough to see through with one eye, in the middle of the front door. The sight that greeted me…

Another silhouette, about the same height as Yoruko. Its outline had a distinctly different shape, but the real difference… was the set of bright, almost greenish blue eyes that seemed to glow, even with the rising sun right behind them.

_Another human… _I thought, looking intently at the set of eyes that seemed to shimmer, almost like the shimmer of the eyes of the undead. _But… something is different about this one._

"Yoruko!" the cerulean-eyed figure said, the voice identifying it as another female. She moved her right hand up to the door, making contact in a way that matched the sound I had heard earlier.

_Wait… she said, 'Yoruko.' Then… they must know each other. I could just leave her with this one and be on my way._

I unlocked the door, making sure that the figure heard it before activating my Phantom Shift and walking through the wall to my right. I ended up in a room that I had seen when I first arrived— a laundry room, by the looks of it.

The door I unlocked opened a moment later. Immediately after, the sound of rushing footsteps rang throughout the house as the figure sprang through the entrance.

"Who's there?" I heard the new girl nearly shout out as she reached the end of the foyer. The volume almost made me unsheathe my knife and go on the attack, but I kept myself calm enough to stick to the plan.

_She won't find me…_ I reasoned with myself, trying to calm my frantically beating heart. _Just stay still, don't make a sound, and she won't find me._

The sound of the cerulean-eyed girl's footsteps drifted towards the living room, where I had left Yoruko sleeping. Even so, I stayed completely still, knowing that I would need to wait until they left to leave myself.

It took several minutes before I heard the sound of two sets of footsteps coming for the front door. With them came two voices, one belonging to Yoruko, and one to the cerulean-eyed girl.

"Why did you run off this time?" the new girl asked my indigo-eyed acquaintance in a tired tone.

"I sensed another living human with a Gift," Yoruko replied, her tone completely different from all of the ones she had used with me. "So I went to find them. I met another human, but I didn't see him use any power. Either his Gift isn't useful in battle, or he didn't even have one, and the human I sensed is already gone."

"What is it with you and picking up stray puppies?" the other one queried gruffly. "Seriously, you're much more important to our team than any rat you find, whether they have a Gift or not."

I knew I shouldn't have been affected by her words, but something in her tone just rubbed me the wrong way. Against my better judgment, I found myself walking back through the wall and right in front of both of them.

"I'm not exactly a 'stray puppy', girlie," I said, giving the cerulean-eyed girl an annoyed glare. Her eyes widened considerably as I spoke, giving me semblance form of satisfaction. "In fact, I can guarantee you that I'm better at surviving than both of you combined."

After a few seconds of shocked silence, the cerulean eyes of my annoyance narrowed. "Oh? How do you figure, street rat?"

"Calm down, both of—"

Before Yoruko could finish, I decided to continue my little debate with this new girl. "Have you traveled alone for five years without any human contact? Have you been surrounded by more than forty undead before fighting your way out and walking away without a scratch? Have you forgotten almost everything about your life in the world before the Event?"

When she said nothing, I smirked, then turned to meet Yoruko's widened eyes. "So, you're not exactly alone, are you? Well, I guess that solves one problem of mine. Now I don't have to deal with a liability when I leave today."

The second I finished my sentence, I heard the familiar sound of a gun being loaded with a magazine. I turned back to the other silhouette, finding her pointing a handgun at my head. On instinct, I activated Phantom Shift, though I could tell that neither of them noticed.

_Good._

"Let's see how you handle a bullet in your brain, Mr. Survivalist."

"Go ahead," I replied, giving her a devious smirk. "But the only thing that it'll do is attract a bunch of undead with the sound. However…"

I grasped the handle of my sheathed knife with my left hand. "I'll make sure that they're not what kills you."

"Both of you, stop it!" Yoruko shouted, walking in between us. "This is wrong! We're all humans, so we shouldn't be trying to kill each other!"

At her words, I found myself relaxing my grip on my knife. At the same time, the other girl lowered her gun, her eyes showing that she still wanted to shot me. She seemed to obey Yoruko for some reason, even though the difference in skill between them was obvious.

I couldn't care less, however. My mind was racing due to three words in her plea.

"_This is wrong!"_

I hadn't thought about what was right or wrong in years. I had lived by my own creed. One that said to do whatever it takes to survive, and destroy anything that gets in the way. Now that I had heard the word, 'wrong', I somehow felt… empty.

_Why?_ My rational mind thought. _Why should I care about what's right or wrong? I just need to keep on living… it doesn't matter if I do something wrong in the process…_

Then, all of the sudden, the cerulean-eyed girl spoke up in an apologetic tone. Even her eyes showed genuine remorse. "Look, Yoruko's right. It's wrong to fight another human. So… I'm sorry."

In truth, I had no idea what to say. I didn't know how to handle it, especially since I was having a hard time handling my own emotions right then.

"Is it wrong?" I finally said, looking up at the ceiling. "We both intended to kill each other. For the past five years, I've never thought about what's right and what's wrong. If something like an undead intended to attack me, I always killed it without a second thought.

"Just a few seconds ago, when you had your gun pointed at me, I thought the exact same thing I do when I see an undead coming after me. 'The first move she makes against me will be her last.' That's what I thought."

I closed my eyes, beginning to talk in a slightly more emotional tone. "In the past five years, I've pretty much become an animal that only thinks about self-preservation. I don't even remember my own name.

"I guess… what I'm trying to say is…" at this point, I was struggling for words. "If I keep going down the path I've walked all this time, I think that I'll lose my humanity entirely. And, at this point, I'm not sure that I want that.

"I don't know where you guys are going after today, but… I want to come with you."

Silence reigned the foyer for several seconds. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the cerulean-eyed girl looking to Yoruko as if she were deferring to her. Finally, it seemed like they reached a verdict.

My indigo-eyed acquaintance looked to the other girl, who began speaking in a stern tone. "Someone is coming to pick us up in five minutes," she said curtly, looking me dead in the eyes. "So you'd best be ready by then."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**So, how was that? Please tell me what you think in a review! Also, sorry for being a bit picky, but please don't just say a generic compliment and then follow up with, "update soon". I know you mean well, but telling me to update right after I **_**just**_** updated can get really annoying.**

**By the way, for those of you who are wondering about this, there is a reason why Kirito can only see silhouettes with eyes, as opposed to seeing the whole body in detail. The only thing he needed to know about the human physique for five whole years was the color of the eyes. All of the undead have glowing golden eyes, so his brain decided to only focus on what he needs to in order to survive.**

**Anyway, I think that's it! I guess I'll be seeing ya!**


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